


Lion's Paw

by hellkitty



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for tf-speedwriting, prompt 'remorse', early war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lion's Paw

Deadlock hated being sidelined and everyone in the comm center knew it. Mostly because he was sure to remind them of it every few kliks, with a glower or growl or a sullen stomp.  It wasn’t his fault he’d gotten his right arm shot the hell up. 

All right, maybe, though, it was his fault that no medic would come near him, not after he punched out the last one.  But everyone in comms was smart enough not to remind him of that point, letting him stalk and mutter his way through the battle that was playing out on their screens. 

It was some kind of torture to see so much of the battle but be so far away from it, watching it in little red and purple dots on a screen.  But Megatron had ordered him here, had told him his tactical knowledge was useful, even if he couldn’t shoot right now.  And Deadlock guessed I was supposed to be some kind of compliment that he was thought valuable enough even though he couldn’t fight. 

Small consolation. 

“Sir.” A golden optic, flicking at him over a screen. “Got something from Sector F4.”

It was almost a relief to have something to do other than watch, so Deadlock moved over with perhaps a little more haste and eagerness than he might want to admit. “What.”

“We got a squad that’s got a Medicenter pinned.  They’re not fighting back, but they’re refusing to surrender.”

Probably, Deadlock thought, with a smirk, because they knew how surrender worked among Decepticons. “Autobots, then.”

A nod from the commtech. “They say the chief medic there—or whoever’s acting chief—wants to negotiate.”

All right, maybe they didn’t know.  Because if they knew how well surrender didn’t work, they’d know Decepticon negotiation often came with high explosive rounds.  “Right.”  He shifted his hand in the sling, restless.

“Squadleader wants to know if he’s got the go ahead to send some HE right up this Ratchet’s exhaust port.”

Ratchet.  Deadlock blinked. Not a name he ever expected to hear.  Then again, in this situation, it made sense. Who else would be dumb enough to try to negotiate with Decepticons? His mouth curled into a smile.  “Tell him to hold off. Be down there in,” he paused, calculating. “Eighteen kliks.” 

“But, sir.” 

Yeah, Deadlock knew. He was put in charge of the comm center.  “He said he wanted to negotiate,” Deadlock said, flatly. Go on, mech, he thought. Push a little harder on this and you’ll see how well I can still shoot left-handed.   “Gonna handle this personally.”

***

“Look a little worse for wear,” Deadlock smirked, settling down onto the chair. He tried to rest his injured arm on the table, but frag, that hurt, so he shifted his weight back, pulling the arm back across his chassis. 

“So do you,” Ratchet responded, evenly. His chevron’s paint had bubbled, and one side was a little charred, and the rest of his light armor was dented and scraped and dirty.

“It’ll heal,” Deadlock said, with a shrug he almost automatically regretted, because the movement sent a lance of pain up his shoulder. “I got time. You and yours, don’t.”

“I think you could use a refresher on how negotiations are supposed to work,” Ratchet said. His optics flicked to the dirty sling holding Deadlock’s injured hand, as though it was some affront. “You’re not supposed to lead with implied violence.”

Deadlock felt his mouth pinch. “Yeah? Then let’s hear what you got.”  He pushed back in his chair, taking a posture of insolence.

“I have a skeleton crew of medics—noncombatants. We have injured. They can’t fight. We haven’t fired a shot at your troops.”

“Don’t try to play that you’re neutral.” Deadlock reached forward with his left hand, tapping the red Autobot insignia on the other’s chest. Nobody was neutral, as far as he was concerned.

“Never claimed to be,” Ratchet said.  “Just that we’re not fighters.” Another flick of the optics down to Deadlock’s sling. 

Deadlock twitched. Yeah, he knew he was injured. Frag. Don’t rub it in.  “What.”

“That’s not going to heal right.”

He tugged the wrist back into the sling. “It’s fine. It’ll heal fine.”

“Yeah? And what medic training academy did you graduate from?” 

Deadlock scowled.

“Let me look at it.” Ratchet’s hands reached across the table, beckoning.

“What? No.” He twitched back, and muttered a curse as the movement banged his injured arm on his thigh.

“Come on. Don’t be stupid. I’m a medic. You’re injured. It’s how things work.”

And the arm was killing Deadlock, hot and painful and lapping at the edge of his consciousness. He pulled his left gun out of his holster, leveling it at Ratchet’s face. “No tricks.”

“No tricks,” Ratchet said. There was a little thread of wariness in his voice, not quite fear, mingled in the exhaustion.

Deadlock shrugged off the sling, spreading his arm on the table, gritting his teeth at the dirty crust of energon bubbling up from the seams. He didn’t need Ratchet’s grunt to figure that made him look bad.

“It’s not going to get you any slack.” He’d get the upper hand, here.  He had the whole Decepticon army on his side. And a gun in his hand. He was unstoppable.

“Yeah, fine, whatever.” Ratchet half stood, reaching for his own hip holster, pulling out a kit. “Ever think it was just driving me crazy?”

“Fraggin’ weird.” But it reminded him of the Ratchet he'd met in Rodion, just doing repairs for free. 

Ratchet looked up, from where he’d already started to lay out tools from his onboard kit. “Weird. Because I don’t want to shoot holes in everything.” He rolled his optics like this was a sign the world had gone upside down. 

Yeah, maybe it had, because Deadlock had been on the bottom before, and he wasn’t anymore, and you know what? He was okay with that.

Deadlock had no answer, so he watched, gun aimed center-chevron. But that kind of threat only works if the other mech looks at you, and right now, Deadlock became just an injury to Ratchet, his entire attention focused on stripping off the armor, scraping away the clotted energon, popping open a piston housing. 

He hissed, as one of the probes hit a neural cluster.

Ratchet snorted, not looking up. “I’d give you a signal block for the pain, but you’re such a big tough Decepticon, I know you’d just figure it was an insult.”

Frag. Something for the pain might have been nice.  And he regretted letting Ratchet do this, because maybe it was some kind of torture or something.  Yeah? He wasn’t going to break: he set his face, stoically. He’d endured worse. The forging of his Decepticon brand had hurt way worse. This was nothing.  

And after a while, it stopped hurting, the hard, hot throbbing that had been riding the edge of his nerves for days starting to cool and lessen. He felt his whole body, shoulders, spine, legs, loosen, releasing tension he hadn't even know he'd been holding. 

“You and your medics can go free,” he said, quietly. An admission, a concession.

“And the patients,” Ratchet said, spreading a cooling salve over a shorted out wire, before setting to work. 

“No,” Deadlock said. “They’re fighters.  Gonna let them go just to have them at us again in a few weeks?” The tone said, ‘do you think I’m stupid?’

“Yeah,” Ratchet said, looking up for the first time. “That happens, you know. Someone you heal once comes around and puts a gun in your face.” 

Deadlock scowled, but lowered the gun, finally.  “You knew.”

“Like you didn’t.” Ratchet bent down, beginning to close up the systems.

“I’ve changed,” Deadlock said, defensively. “Not boosting anymore.”  And then he bit more words back. Why did he care what Ratchet thought of him, anyway? What did it matter? He was Deadlock: Autobots feared him; Decepticons were wary around him.  Megatron had given him his name. He was somebody now, someone important.

“I think you’ve just exchanged one addiction for another,” Ratchet said, quietly.

“I have a purpose now,” Deadlock said, frowning. “I matter. People are afraid of me.” He leveled the gun again. “Aren’t you?”

Ratchet looked up, and he looked…tired beyond tired, optics almost tarnished.  “Been a long time since I was afraid to die, Drift.”

Deadlock couldn’t understand that. It made no sense. How could you be not afraid to die? Even in the gutters, Deadlock had wanted to live. Just…live any life but his. “I could kill you now.”

“You won’t.” Ratchet closed up the rest of the armor, wiping it down with a rag. “Because I know you. And you may be a killer, but you’re not a murderer.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Because he was a murderer, starting with those three guards.  Wasn't he? He was lost to anything decent, that was for sure. 

“I’m not,” Ratchet said. “I just want my mechs to be safe. If you blowing my head off is what that takes, then do it. But I don’t think you’re that kind of mech. I don’t think you’ve changed that much.” There was a creep of doubt in his voice for the first time, as if maybe Deadlock had changed from the mech he’d rescued once, and it would be a disappointment. 

But Drift had been a mess back then, strung out, half-starved, useless. What would be worse than that?

This?

Deadlock pulled his hand away, balling and stretching the fingers, experimentally. “Fine. You and your mechs and your patients. Go.”

“Supplies,” Ratchet said.

“You don’t know when to quit,” Deadlock said. 

“Neither do you,” Ratchet retorted, stowing his tools, wiping each carefully first. “Supplies.”

“We need those,” Deadlock said. “I can’t come back empty-handed.” Because he realized he was negotiating way more than he’d thought he was. He’d thought he was going to gloat about the high and mighty Ratchet, and enjoy the feel of his life in Deadlock’s hands. He hadn’t even gotten close.

Ratchet waited. Because it was waiting, as he made a show of rolling up his kit, stowing it in his thigh storage, and looking up, hands innocently folded on the table.

“Fine,” Deadlock said. “But only what you can carry. And you leave in five kliks.” He scowled, hating that he was giving in. 

Ratchet rose, his face exquisitely neutral. “Guess I better get started, then.”

Deadlock looked down at his hands, one empty, clean, and feeling healed and whole, the other still clutching at his pistol, killer's hands, nothing more; then up at Ratchet. “Guess you better.”

Ratchet turned in the doorway. “Kind of liked the old Drift better,” he said, before moving through the threshold, bustling to get his stuff ready to move. Deadlock could hear him issuing orders, all of the softness gone from his voice, all sharp command.  As if you could do both at once, be a leader and be nice. Command, and care. 

Deadlock couldn’t.  He stood up, slowly, and he couldn’t help the feeling that maybe, maybe, he liked the old Drift better, too.


End file.
